Originally posted by: cerebusPu
it hink going to college would be a very good way to leave your old life behind. once you are in a new state you can easily not talk to your old friends anymore. yo uget to start all new again. no one knows anything about your old life.
dont worry about costs, state schools are fairly cheap and you can get student loans for anything more than you cant afford.
Well, it's either my friends online *or* my family IRL that I need to push away. Having both just seems to make me feel even worse. heh
Originally posted by: djheater
Originally posted by: GeekDrew
I decided a few weeks ago that I had been enough of a burden on my close friends (heh.... and these are a couple of people that I only talk to online) for way too long... so I started distancing myself from them.
The self-pity evident in this statement makes me want to punch you in the face.
Uhm..... Have at it? My whois info is accurate.
Originally posted by: cmdrmoocow
Get your college degree - its the most important thing that you can do at this point.
Get your degree.
Get it and then travel to a much different part of the country (or even out of the country?) and start your life over. If you try and start it over when you're physically in the same town, it can't work. If you move somewhere without first getting a degree, you wont have the possibility to get a high-paying job to fund your new life.
If your biological family shuns you all the time, then just cut yourself off from them. If they aren't talking to you, then they can't drag you down any further.
But get the degree.....
My biological family is the root of my problems. *EVERY* time I'm around them very much at all, I change into a completely different person. I used to live in Columbus, with my adopted family - I actually enjoy life, I loved my job, I enjoyed having a social life, and going out with friends (even though I didn't do it as much as most of you do). But then circumstances dictated that I move back in with my biological family (my adopted parents told me I couldn't live there any longer, because they wanted to remodel the part of the house I lived in, and I was not making enough money to live on my own or with a roommate).
Within a month of moving back in here (June 2004), I no longer went out with any friends, I was back to hating life, and I couldn't stand my job any more. I eventually resigned in January. I've been unemployed since. Living here just makes me realize that I'm never going to amount to anything, no matter what I do, and it eliminates hope - because I see hundreds of "educated" people around here, that are making next to nothing, and that I consider a "failure". When I lived in Columbus, I didn't see that. All I saw was people doing what they enjoyed, and having fun in their lives. Now I have no money, and am in debt, and just working temporary jobs that won't make ends meet, so I can't think of any way to get out of here in the near future.
Originally posted by: totalcommand
IMO, I think you're overthinking things when it comes to your friends. An idle mind is dangerous. Find something you are really passionate about in life, and go put all your energy into it. If you haven't found that thing yet, go find it, experiment. A college degree might be a way to do that.
You're first step has to be getting the self confidence to make a life-changing decision like this. Stop fearing the unknown, because you will never be able to control it, and start taking chances.
In the end, nothing we say can truly help you...find something that gives you hope (hope is GOOD), and use that to convince yourself to make a positive decision where you ignore the unknown.
There is *nothing* that I am passionate about any more. The things I used to enjoy doing... in most cases, I absolutely can't stand it, and in all cases, I don't enjoy it.
I really think that I *would* take chances, if I honestly thought that I would get anywhere in doing so. I don't really think that it's so much self confidence as it is knowing with absolute certainty that what I'm going to do is going to help my situation. I just can't see it.
The people I see around me every day, including everyone that has college degrees... they're still miserable. Nothing changed for them, why should it change for me?
I'm continually given plenty of hope... I want to push people away, so that I can either work from it, or get rid of it. Having hope when I feel as though I'm not able to do anything about it just makes me feel even worse.
Originally posted by: Cuda1447
If for some reason though I were able to just leave it all, just go. I think it would affect everyone else around me a lot more than it would myself. I'm not the type of person to be attatched, and I could probably handle leaving everyone behind and starting COMPLETELY new somewhere else. Would be interesting
I *am* the type of person to be attached... the only way I'm able to 'get over' people that I'm attached to is to push them completely out of my life, so I don't even so much as hear or see their name(s). It may or may not be best to do so... but that's the only way I know of doing it (for me).
Originally posted by: totalcommand
Originally posted by: djheater
Originally posted by: GeekDrew
I decided a few weeks ago that I had been enough of a burden on my close friends (heh.... and these are a couple of people that I only talk to online) for way too long... so I started distancing myself from them.
The self-pity evident in this statement makes me want to punch you in the face.
and this guy has a point...though it was kind of blunt.
stop pitying yourself, stop accepting other people's pity. Go to college or whatever you're passionate about, you will earn both respect for yourself and your friends' respect also.
Respect >>> pity
I agree that respect is far better than pity... I just don't know how to do it. heh.
It's not like the mental courage to do it, any more, that is the problem. It's the little steps, for how to do it. Like I'm blind, and I have no idea where I'm walking.... I just don't know how to get out of here, to go to college, etc. heh I'm sure that college is my only hope that's left... because there's nothing more I'm passionate about.
Originally posted by: Gooberlx2
You're gay. If you feel that's a big part of your depression (and lets call this what it is) due to lack of acceptance and you MUST move, then move somewhere where gay people are more common/accepted. Orlando, San Fran, Denver even....
If your family shuns you, then they're not family. Real family doesn't do that, biological or not. I have friends I consider to be more "family" to me than some of my biological relatives. Basically you need to find a friend base that you feel is worth keeping around. Find people you can connect to on a personal level.
But I agree, going to college could be a big step. Nowadays college is yet another process of the whole "coming of age". A Highschool education is no longer sufficient. Beyond education and academics, college tends to be a real growing experience for most people....especially if you go to a school too far away to make staying at home feasible. In college there's a hundred other people just like you, feeling isolated and desperate. Form a club, 'cause there's a club for every other damn thing.
Heck, Columbus is more than enough accepting for me. That's only 50 or so miles from here, and I'm already very familiar with it. Chicago is the only other city that I would be slightly inclined to move to, and its acceptance is better than Columbus's, from what I've read and seen.
No kidding... my biological family disowned me when I was 16. I eventually wound up living with friends (aka, my adopted parents) from ages 16-19. I was a completely different person... I enjoyed life. I'm not any blood or legal relation to my adopted family, but they are family moreso than anyone else. Until I decided to push them away, I also considered my closest friends to be family. I can connect with them on a personal level, and they are all worth keeping around. I just don't know if I can handle the continual hope that they bring me, when it just disappears shortly thereafter, and I eventually feel worse than before.
I'm sure that college would be a huge change... I used to fear going to college for that reason... I no longer do. There is a trust fund that will pay for my tuition, books, and anything else that the college will bill me for... but not for any living expenses, meaning I would have to get a job. I'm not opposed to getting a job eventually.... say, after I've been there a semester, and am sure that I'm able to handle the workload of both a job and college. I just don't want to have a job immediately, which is what it would require, because I don't think I could handle that much of a change, and that much work, all at once.
The trust fund is also not currently willing to pay for me to go to college anywhere out-of-state (because the trustee, my aunt, wants me to stay at home). If, for some reason, I became super-motivated about college, and could somehow prove to her that I could succeed in an out-of-state college, then I could probably convince her to pay for books & tuition out-of-state. Oh, and I don't qualify for any assistance because my biological family is too wealthy (even though we're dirt poor, we have a ton of land), and because of the trust fund. I don't know about loans, but I'd guess that I would probably need a cosignor, which I don't have, and won't have.
If I got to college, I don't really think that I would feel "isolated and desperate". It's my immediate surroundings that cause that. heh
Originally posted by: themroc27
get out of that town? why stay where you aren't appreciated?
Because I don't know how to leave? :-\
Originally posted by: RGN
Get the eff off of ATOT. Go do something. School. Pick up dudes at the local dude hangout (I know this guy, I think he plays for your team...) Just do something other than hide on the fricken PC all day.
Such as...? I can't go anywhere, because I don't have the money for fuel. The last thing I want to do is pick up dudes, but that's rather irrelevant anyway, since the nearest gay bar is over 50 miles away. It's not the courage that I'm lacking any more (I think?), but the knowledge of the steps needed for HOW to do it
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